FUTURE AND IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHIES OF ‘ AFRICA ’S SINGAPORE ’: Planning the Emergent National–Urban Nexus of Rwanda–Kigali

As an aspirational target, ‘Singapore as model’ provides a sense of the possible for Rwanda's post‐genocide development. Yet how are those possibilities transformed into plans? This article draws on a close reading of the Kigali Master Plan 2050, authored by a Singaporean urban planning firm, and interviews with stakeholders in Rwanda's public and private sectors to understand how the document is to be put to work in building a smart city, linking future‐looking and future‐making. We find that the Master Plan imagines Rwanda–Kigali as a national–urban nexus echoing, without duplicating, Singapore's distinctive model. Making the Master Plan for Kigali and transforming Kigali into a smart city demonstrates the strong nexus of national and urban institutions in which the urban is endowed with symbolic power and strong advocacy for coordinated centralization at the city level. Therefore, the key to making Rwanda Africa's Singapore is to institutionalize Kigali's urban futures. Rwandan stakeholders in these institutions demonstrate agency, especially by pursuing regional aspirations to Kigali's smart urban future.